以地方志為主的存世宋元文獻中關于農村地區基層組織的記述,呈現出一種極為復雜的格局,但絕大多數作鄉—里編排。及至北宋中期,從前代承續而來的鄉里制已被廢棄,實際運行中的鄉村基層組織逐步鄉都化,所以文獻記述與制度運作之間出現了落差。從唐入宋,鄉村基層組織作為聯戶組織、以一定人戶規模建構起來的唐代鄉里體系,隨著歷史演變發生地域化與聚落化的制度蛻化,其中地域化是主要方向,結果是業已普遍蛻化成為地理名稱的某鄉某里等被地方志編纂者作為一種地域標識體系記載下來。入宋以后,帝制國家出于管理需要,重新組建的鄉管、鄉都等聯戶組織,則因其尚不夠穩定,無法用以標識地域,在記述中被忽略了。這一由制度蛻化引發的議題,當屬歷史文本與史實之間復雜關系的典型案例。

The accounts of basic rural organizations in the extant literature of the Song and Yuan dynasties(mainly local gazetteers) show an extremely complex situation,but the vast majority have a xiang-li(鄉里) arrangement.By the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty,the xiang-li system handed down from previous generations had been abandoned,and the actually operating basic rural organization became the xiang-du,giving rise to a disparity between the documentary accounts and institutional operations.With the passing of time,from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty,the Tang xiang-li system,in which the basic rural units were organizations of linked households of a certain scale,underwent a process of institutional transmutation manifested in localization and concentration.The main trend in this process was localization,which resulted in the widespread degeneration of particular xiang or li into place names which were recorded as a system of regional identification by the compilers of local chronicles.In the Song,the imperial state,for reasons of management,re-established organizations of linked households such as the xiang-guan and xiang-du.As these were not yet stable,they could not be used for local identification,so were ignored in the records.We can regard this issue,emerging as it does from institutional evolution,as a typical case of the complex relations between historical text and historical fact.